Glossary: Gender Issue

LGBT – an acronym that stands for “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender” people.

Transgender – an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. A transgender person includes a male who identifies or adopts the female gender role or a male whose identity is female, among other things.

Transsexual – a person who is in the process of or has undertaken surgery or hormonal treatment in order to make his or her body more congruent with his or her preferred gender.

Gay – identity is male, although he has sexual preferences for other men.

Lesbian – identity is female, although she has sexual preferences for other women

Bisexual – identity is either male or female, and has sexual preferences for both men and women

Intersex – persons who have biologically mixed sex organs, hormones or traits. The acronym LGBT is often extended to include intersex people (LGBTI)

Transphobia – fear, rejection or aversion, often in the form of stigmatizing attitudes or discriminatory behavior toward transgender or other gender variants outside the male-female heterosexual construct

Sex – refers to one’s biological status as either male or female. Associated primarily with physical attributes (i.e. chromosomes, homone prevalence, external and internal anatomy.)

Gender – Socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities linked to one’s sex such as masculinity, femininity,androgyny, etc.

Sources: American Psychological Association, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS Terminology Guidelines, Trans-academics.org